MINORITY PLAYERS

MINORITY PLAYERS; Unthinking Racism

Published: March 31, 2002

To the Editor:

James R. Oestreich's article ''String Players Young, Gifted and Black'' [March 3] points out that symphony orchestras employ few black musicians. The problem is of long standing. A study of race's effect on judgments of performance (by Charles A. Elliot in Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, Winter 1995-1996) suggests a reason.

A recording of two instrumental etudes was synchronized to several different videotaped performances. Eighty-eight evaluators, all experienced music teachers, were told to judge the quality of the performances, but since the performances were identical, the real variables were the race and gender of the performers. For each etude a white man, a black man, a white woman and a black woman were seen on tape. Women were judged as performing less well than men, while blacks were judged significantly lower than whites.

The prospect that such unthinking racism persists in our musical world is chilling, and it diminishes the lives of white and black musicians alike.

MIKE MOSS

New Haven

The writer is director of bands at Southern Connecticut State University.